Tighter homes and more stringent residential energy-use standards are putting whole-house heat- and energy-recovery ventilators in the spotlight.
Soon homes that will meet Energy Star standard will require to provide an adequate amount of outside fresh air intercalation but because it is not required doesn’t infer that it is not ideal for your family and your home. Tight home provide an energy saving home although you still need fresh air to your home to control air quality and humidity.
How They Work
Simply, HRVs and ERVs provide a balanced, controlled, and measured amount of fresh air into the house to cycle out pollutants, while also capturing and exchanging the heat—or sensible energy—from the exhausted indoor airflow with the incoming air. This exchange preheats incoming air in the winter, or “pre-cools” it (if to a lesser extent) in the summer, reducing the energy demand on the home’s primary heating and cooling equipment.
Also because furnaces and air conditioners don’t have to work as hard or as long with an HRV or ERV supplementing air to them, they also might perform longer at optimum levels and achieve better investment values.
The equipment design of an HRV is fairly simple that two fans pushed a balanced amount of air through fixed filters while allowing to facilitate and exchange of heat between the two flows. ERVs follow the same general design while having an seperate chamber to manage humidity. Basically they are circulating the indoor air with the outdoor air with minimal heat loss. These systems must be connected to the homes central forced air heating and cooling system.
The effect of introducing preheated or precooled air into a room or rooms will not only freshen the indoor air but also reduce demand on the heating or cooling equipment to condition the incoming air.
For any questions on indoor air quality or energy saving items, Contact Modern Homes, Inc.